City of Akron and Akron Parks Collaborative Announce the 2025 Akron Parks Challenge Winners

Akron, Ohio, June 11, 2025 - Today, the City of Akron and Akron Parks Collaborative are thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2025 Akron Parks Challenge. The winners are Waters Park (140 Olive St. in Ward 2) and Karona Park (1099 Karen Dr. in Ward 8), each to receive $150,000 in city-funded capital improvements with community engagement and design support from Akron Parks Collaborative.

This seventh installment of the Akron Parks Challenge, which launched in February, invited residents to pitch their vision for how to improve their favorite Akron park by collaborating with their neighborhood to support design, implementation and upkeep.

"The Akron Parks Challenge process puts community engagement at the beginning of the process, so that neighborhood residents themselves decide how to use their own park and also provide input on how they want it to look and feel," said Akron Mayor Shammas Malik."It's essential to neighborhood health and safety to have engaged and active groups involved in solutions toward a more vibrant Akron and this is a key part of our Living Together goals."

Waters Park in North Hill, serves a diverse and multi-cultural neighborhood. Applicants included North Hill CDC, North Hill Community House, Rooted in Christ Ministry, Asia Inc., Akron Cooperative Farms, North Hill Library, IN-Akron, Akron Inner City Soccer, Rubber City Football Club, Catac Theater, and several residents. The park also has active groups around pickleball and shuffleboard who will be an instrumental part of the engagement and planning process. Initial ideas include adding a playground, a street soccer area and seating and spaces for gatherings.

"Winning the Akron Parks Challenge is a major step toward transforming Waters Park-Akron's first playground-into a vibrant, inclusive space that reflects the culture and diversity of North Hill. This investment helps us preserve the legacy of Frank Waters while creating new opportunities for recreation, connection, and celebration for residents of all ages. By reimagining this historic park, we're not only revitalizing public space-we're strengthening community pride, belonging, and the stories that built this neighborhood" said Justin Chenault, Executive Director of the North Hill CDC.

Karona Park is in Merriman Valley within a tight knit community in Parkway Estates. Replacing their playground that is well past its useful life and attending to the tennis court last improved in 2002 are at the top of their wish list. The application was driven by residents and their desire to have a safe community space.

"Karona Park winning the Akron Parks Challenge is a testament to the wonderful, diverse, and genuine community we have in Parkway Estates. Neighbors loving one another is what will change the world for the better.  We are so grateful to have a renewed safe place in our neighborhood to continue to do life together," remarked resident organizer, Carolyn George.

When visiting the park to talk to the applicants, the APC board was blown away by what appeared to be the entire neighborhood turning out to support the application or just to find out what was going on!

The goal of the Challenge is to engage communities around neighborhood parks to create active and vibrant public spaces. The Challenge requires interested neighborhood residents and organizations to show how they will help engage their community around the process.

Submissions were reviewed by the Akron Parks Collaborative and were judged based on measures of community engagement and equity.

"Both recipients this year are the first parks chosen in their respective ward and have applied multiple times," stated Bridget Ambrisco, executive director of the Akron Parks Collaborative. "Both have active groups focused on improving their park to provide a hub for the neighborhood to build community and vibrancy."

The City of Akron and the Akron Parks Collaborative will begin working with the two core teams for each park to develop a plan for community engagement activities over the next several months-including public meetings, events, surveys and discussion with neighborhood stakeholders. Neighborhood designed capital improvements could begin as quickly as a year from now but typically take 2 years to come to fruition.

For more information on Akron's Park Challenge, please visit akronparks.org.